Google to dump user data sooner

Bowing to pressure from privacy watchdogs and regulators, Google Inc. said it would shorten the length of time it retained consumer data, making those records anonymous after nine months rather than 18.

Google used to keep logs of all search queries connected to Internet protocol addresses, the unique address assigned to each Internet connected device, indefinitely. In March 2007, the company began making those queries anonymous after 18 months. But the move didn’t appease privacy groups or European regulators increasingly nervous about Google’s growing dominance on the Internet.

-- Jessica Guynn